V. I. Lenin

To The Workers Of Petrograd

Delivered:12 July, 1918First Published:1924 in the magazineProletarskaya RevolutsiaNo. 3 (26); Published according to the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th English
    Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 27, pages 536-537Translated:Clemens Dutt; Edited by Robert DaglishTranscription/HTML Markup:David Walters & Robert
    CymbalaOnline Version:Lenin Internet
    ArchiveMarch, 2002

Dear Comrades,

I am taking advantage of the fact that Comrade Kayurov, an old acquaintance of mine and well known to the Petrograd workers, is leaving for Petrograd, to send you a few words.

Comrade Kayurov has been in Simbirsk Gubernia and has himself observed the attitude of the kulaks to the poor peasants and to our government. He has perfectly realised what no Marxist and no class-conscious worker can doubt, namely, that the kulaks hate the Soviet government, the government of the workers, and will inevitably overthrow it if the workers do not immediately make every effort to forestall the attack of the kulaks on the Soviets and to smash the kulaks before they can manage to unite.

The class-conscious workers can do this at the present moment; they can rally the poor peasants around themselves, defeat the kulaks and smash them, provided the vanguard of the workers realise their duty, make every effort and organise a mass campaign into the rural districts.

Nobody but the workers of Petrograd can do this, for there are no other workers in Russia as class-conscious as the Petrograd workers. It is foolish and criminal to stay in Petrograd, starve, hang around idle factories and cherish the absurd dream of restoring Petrograd industry or defending Petrograd. That will mean the ruin of our revolution. The Petrograd workers must abandon such nonsense, send packing the fools who advocate it, and set out in tens of thousands for the Urals, the Volga and the South, where there is an abundance of grain, where they can feed themselves and their families, where they must help the poor peasants to organise, and where the Petrograd worker is indispensable as an organiser, guide and leader.

Kayurov will recount his personal observations, and, I am certain, will convince all waverers. The revolution is in danger. Only a mass campaign of the Petrograd workers can save it. Arms and money we shall not stint.

With Communist greetings,

LeninJuly 12, 1918